Florigraphy
by theskyinourhearts
Summary: FrUK. Arthur receives a rose from Francis and believes it to be a symbol of friendship, unaware that it also means that love has faded. De-anon from the kink meme.


Here is a fill I wrote for the Hetalia Kink Meme livejournal a while back, before I had an account

The prompt was: 'These days a yellow rose is most commonly associated with friendship. It used to symbolize infidelity, jealousy, and dying love. One Nation presents a yellow rose to his/her lover, thinking they'll understand the words he/she cannot say. The other Nations thinks it's sweet to get a flower meaning friendship from their lover.'

As always, critique is very much appreciated.

The first flurries of snowfall, white petals against the dun earth of the river Mersey, roused Arthur from his light sleep.

His Liverpool residence was Georgian and took to the cold like an old woman, grumbling and shifting as she turned from the sun. Alfred had told him to modernise, to find somewhere easy to heat and with fewer long, creaking staircases.

However, Arthur found the handsome building comfortable enough. After all, nothing compared to a roaring fire on a chill winter's day.

He got to his feet with a sigh, tugging down the cuffs of his shirt. He took a log from the basket to reawaken the dying flames but was interrupted by a knock at the door.

Arthur dropped the log into the grate, cursing softly as sparks flew up around his already-calloused hands. He hurried out the lounge and took the stairs two at a time. There was still some life left in this old body, he thought to himself, though he was careful to hold onto the bannister.

The locks were undone with steady hands. Liverpool might have been growing, reconciling and repairing the more sordid aspects of its past, but no city allowed a man to leave his house entirely unprotected.

A gust of wind brought the winter inside, snow swirling through the hallway. Arthur swiftly stepped back. A shiver crept down his thinly-clad spine.

On the doorstep lay a single package. A small blue box, no card or note.

Arthur peered gingerly out into the cold. He couldn't see hide nor hide of whoever had delivered it. A woman walked in the distance, her red coat radiant, but she was too far away, and too laden down with shopping bags, to have rung his doorbell two short minutes ago.

Shrugging, he picked up the parcel and headed gratefully back inside.

The unheated hallway was unbearable to stand around in, so the Englishman climbed the stairs, not quite so energeticlly as before, and settled himself before his fire in order to open the box.

He struggled clumsily at the ties with fingers numbed by cold until the contents fell into his lap.

A creamy white card and a butter yellow rose. They all but shone against his dark trousers. He held the card up to the light and was able to read 'mon coeur', written in tightly curled penmanship.

"Francis," he thought to himself. Sixty years together now, almost to the day, and he still was unused to the Frenchman's tokens of affection.

Discarding the note, he twirled the flower between his fingers. Arthur was duly proud of his skill as a gardener, Ludwig even had 'English Gardens' as attractions in his country, yet he was not sure that he could have produced a bloom of such lustre, such vivacity, in the depths of winter.

Still, yellow was a far cry from the beginning of their time together. No, that had been fierce scarlet. Once, the colour of their armies meeting each other in battle, the fires as cities burnt, then the gentle whisper of the flower-filled battlefields when the fighting was done.

What was it that a yellow rose meant? Arthur knew his lover to be almost overly fond of symbolism.

Whenever Francis sent flowers, they were always roses. The flower of love for the country of love, he would always say with that obnoxious laugh. Arthur would reply with a disgruntled noise, but the flowers would always end up in one of his best vases, watered daily without fail.

The Englishman was already searching for a vase by the time that the significance of a yellow rose struck him. He caught himself and stood stock still whilst his heart gave an imperceptible shift.

Friendship. The yellow rose meant friendship. The strangeness of it made Arthur smile. The two nations renowned for their near constant antagonism, friends at last. After all the times that they had ripped out the others heart only to stamp on it - The Hundred Years, Joan of Arc, Agincourt - the gift of simple, understated love was seismic.

Unable to stop himself from grinning inanely, Arthur placed the bloom in pride of place, the centre of the mantlepiece.

All through that lazy afternoon, a nagging feeling tugged at his mind. Had he forgotten something? Had the stress of recent months caused him to forget some important rule for the care of roses?

Still, the rose glowed, brighter than the fire, an untimely winter sun, as Arthur finally succumbed to sleep.

-  
Many miles away, in a winter far colder than Arthur's, Francis was awakening.

Lying in a bed warm with more than one person's body heat, he stretched, enjoying the relief brought to his sore muscles. A feeling of fluid satisfaction radiated through him, until a realisation of the date occurred to him.

His message to Arthur would have arrived only a few hours ago. His lover would have opened it, heard the words that Francis was unable to say, and perhaps even begun to tear apart anything that had brought them together.

The enormity of what he had done hit him like a freight train and a strangled sob ecaped his lips. The body lying in his arms shifted in sleep, making a small noise as it was dragged from sleep.

Francis leant in to kiss their forehead. "Shh, Matthieu, my love. Go back to sleep." He ran his hands along soft skin, barely scarred by him or any other.

"I am sorry," he whispered to himself as he buried his face in Matthew's curls, "So very sorry."


End file.
